Instead of dying in a nursing home, why not spend the rest of your life on a cruise? Your wallet will thank you. I’m Newt Gingrich, more in a moment.

I heard a story the other day that perfectly captures the difference between the free market – which drives costs down – and what we have in healthcare – a government regulated mess that drives costs up.

A man just embarking on a two week cruise noticed that all the staff seemed to know one particular woman. He figures she had been on the cruise before. But he didn’t know the half of it.

It turned out she had been on the boat for five straight months.

Her explanation was even more shocking. It turns out to be forty dollars a day cheaper to go on a cruise than live in a nursing home. The woman was just being frugal.

The story itself probably isn’t true, but I checked her numbers – they’re pretty accurate.

AARP’s website says that the average cost of nursing home care – which exists inside a broken, government regulated healthcare system – is $194 a day.

On the other hand, the average cost of 2-4 week Princess Cruise – which competes for your dollars against all the other cruise lines – is $155 a day, almost $40 cheaper.

I’ve spent a lot of time with people who work in long-term care and I believe that they love the people they work with, they care about the patients and if they had the same freedom to innovate and the same freedom to be effective that we would absolutely have a dramatically better system.

That’s my opinion, what’s yours? Write me at newt.org. I’m Newt Gingrich and together we can win the future.